


Victory March

by PenguinofProse



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hallelujah references, Hurt/Comfort, Post Series, angst with an optimistic ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29614695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: Clarke and Echo heal together. Post-series. Angst with an optimistic ending.
Relationships: Echo/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	Victory March

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sad fic with an optimistic ending. Maybe give it a miss if angst is not your thing. It's also Clecho endgame so please don't leave hate for that pairing or either character in the comments - if it's not a ship you like, I would encourage you to go find one of the other awesome fics in this fandom instead! It also has implied Bellarke and historic Becho references so again, no hate please thank you! This picks up straight after the final episode of canon.
> 
> Content note: canon compliant symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD. Lots of references to Bellamy's death scene and to bereavement.

There's a song Murphy likes to sing, as he walks or works or simply wastes time, as they can do these days. He says he learnt it in the lighthouse bunker, that it saw him through some hard times. It's a sad song – or perhaps bittersweet at a push.

Clarke wishes he would shut the hell up.

She doesn't need him to tell her that love is not a victory march. She knows that. There is nothing in this life she knows _better_ , in fact.

War is over now. All war, forever. And Clarke knows that is a victory, knows that the way to win at war is to stop fighting. She's heard Octavia's repentant spiel. But it doesn't feel like a victory. It feels hollow, like the gaping hole in her chest where her heart ought to beat.

The song doesn't have the steady thump-thump of a heartbeat. It's disorientating, lurching, comes at her in groups of three when she least expects it.

She could do with not being caught off-guard by sad songs, all things considered. She has quite enough to deal with, thank you very much.

…...

She spends the first week waiting for Bellamy to show up.

She knows he's dead. She knows she killed him. She knows he's not going to pop out from behind a tree, like one of Jasper's worse practical jokes.

She knows it, yet still she expects him, in her heart.

…...

The second week is worse.

That's all she cares to say about it, really. All she _can_ say about it, even.

…...

She tries harder, in the third week. She tries reminding herself frequently and often that Bellamy is _not_ hiding behind a tree. She tries recalling that she shot him, visualising the look on his face as he tumbled to the floor.

That doesn't help, strangely.

She tries to move about more. She tries to fetch wood, catch fish, kindle fire. And it's while she's around the camp that it happens.

"... maybe I've been here before, I know this room, and I've walked this floor..."

"Stop it." She snaps. "Stop it, Murphy. Stop it. Just stop it."

She know what comes next. And she can't bear it, can't bear to hear his cynical voice as he teases the melody out over that cursed _victory march_. She can't bear to have singing in the world at all, she's pretty sure, now that Bellamy's gone.

Murphy does stop singing. But he looks affronted, too. He sort of bristles as he backs away, brows raised, hands outstretched.

Clarke ignores him and goes back to searching the shore for shellfish.

The regret creeps up on her quickly. She shouldn't be angry with Murphy. She _mustn't_ be angry with him, in fact, because he's one of the people who came back for her. She owes him, as she owes all of them.

She finds it pretty damn strange that they did choose to come back. She wasn't close with all of them, before. And she wasn't the closest with _any_ of them. The only people in the world she could ever imagine would turn back for her are her parents, Madi, and Bellamy.

And yet, those are not the people she finds herself with.

She avoids people for the rest of the day. She takes herself out on ever more dubious errands, goes hunting and gathering for things that do not need to be hunted or gathered. She even tells Gaia at one point that she's heading out in search of mushrooms, although she knows full well it's the wrong time of year.

It's Echo who finds her, in the end.

"It's OK to be angry." Echo says lightly, as if that's a perfectly normal way to start a conversation.

Clarke stiffens. "I'm not angry." She lies.

"You are." Echo corrects her, firmly but not unkindly. "I can tell. Spy, remember? You're angry that we're here, and they're not. You're angry that Cadogan took everything from you, just when you thought you might be able to live peacefully on Sanctum. And you're angry with Murphy for his damn perky singing."

Clarke nods. Echo's onto something, there. But she's missed out the most important thing of all.

Clarke is angry with Bellamy, too. She's angry with him for being dead, and gone, even though she knows it's her fault. She's angry with him for joining a faith where the dead can't transcend. She's angry with him for letting her pull the trigger, or making her pull the trigger, or whatever it is he did to make things play out the way they did.

She's almost as angry with him as she is with herself.

…...

The fourth week happens, probably. It largely passes Clarke by. She cries a lot, goes out in search of nonexistent mushrooms.

No one sings where she can hear them, and she counts that a victory.

…...

It might be the fifth week when she snaps again. Or maybe it's the sixth. Does counting even matter, when Bellamy's dead at her hand?

No, that's silly. The two things are unrelated. A bit of grief and guilt didn't ought to mess so much with her ability to keep track of the world around her.

Anyway, she snaps. It's Gaia this time. Unobjectionable Gaia, who's just trying to ask whether she's OK. But Clarke doesn't much care for Gaia's concern, now that Madi is gone. They bonded over caring for Madi, and now that bond is broken, it seems.

"I'm fine." She lies through her teeth. "I'm fine. Just leave me. I'm fine."

It's Echo who finds her again. That'll serve her right for going to the same patch of woodland, she thinks. Or maybe it wasn't an accident? Maybe on some subconscious level, she wanted to be found?

Huh. She takes that idea and runs with it.

"I am angry." She says to Echo. Three little words, more dangerous than any love confession, she's pretty sure.

"Of course you are. But that's OK. The important thing is to accept it, to let it out in the right way." Echo pauses. "The important thing is not to kill anyone."

Clarke nods. She gets it. She knows where this is coming from – Echo has been angry, too. This is a gesture of friendship that she can handle better than Gaia's kind concern, somehow. This is not sympathy or hugs or gentle words. This is simple, factual, an acknowledgement of grief shared, and similar mistakes made.

She hugs Echo. She doesn't think about it too hard, she just does it. She wants some human contact, and Echo is there. Echo is nonjudgemental, easy, not going to ask difficult questions about the state of her head.

It's a funny old business, Clarke thinks. It's only two months and a couple of centuries since she first saw Bellamy and Echo's reunion in that desert. And if someone had told her, then, that she would end up killing Bellamy and hug Echo in her grief, she'd have laughed in their face. Or maybe hit them.

How times change.

…...

Bellamy haunts her, still, as the seventh and eighth weeks crawl on by.

He doesn't haunt her the same way Finn haunted her, some nightmarish daytime vision of a dead man walking. He doesn't haunt her the same way Lexa still haunts her, some kind of twisted imaginary friend to both guide and judge her. The alien really got that right, huh?

Bellamy haunts her dreams – _sweet_ dreams.

In her dreams, they are always together. He's always smiling, eyes warm, as they sit side-by-side before a fire. Sometimes the dreams are hotter still, flames of passion and burning touches and her core on fire with pleasure.

It's the worst kind of haunting of all, she thinks. Taunting her with what could have been and what never was.

She doesn't tell anyone. Only Echo would understand, she thinks, and she cannot tell Echo. She cannot tell her that she's having dreams about _her_ boyfriend.

He was never hers to lose.

So Clarke does what she has always done. She bears it alone.

…...

She stops counting weeks. She decides there's probably not much point to it. That ritual started out as a desperate attempt to feel in control of the world around her, she seems to remember, but now she's surrendering to the fact that she's never been in control of her own life at all.

It wasn't helping, anyway. It was just reminding her that it's over two months, now, since she last saw her precious daughter or her... _Bellamy_.

She seeks a better solution. She's always been pragmatic, she seems to remember. Perhaps it's time to try and remaster that art again.

"What do you do?" She asks Echo. "How do you deal with it?"

Echo snorts without humour. "I make myself feel useful. That's all I've ever known how to do – here or in space. I go hunting and skin what I catch. And I guess – I try to look out for other people, too."

Clarke nods. Taking care of people is a powerful way of feeling a sense of purpose – she has clung to it before now in some of the difficult patches of her life. The thing is that, right now, she's still feeling too deep in over her head to know where to start.

She swallows. She can do this.

"Maybe we could try being useful together?" She asks, feebly.

Echo helps her out. "Yeah. Sure. You want to come hunting with me this morning?"

She doesn't _want_ to do that, as it happens. She cannot remember the last time she genuinely _wanted_ to do anything – anything besides hugging Madi and Bellamy, that is.

But she's willing to do it. She thinks it's a good idea. She feels it is the best option of the very few options available.

 _The only choice_.

No. She can't go thinking of that. She hasn't the time to spiral – she has a hunting mission to prepare for.

…...

They make a habit of hunting together. There isn't much else to make a habit of round here, is there? As Clarke sees it, her choice for daily activities is either this or sitting around and hating herself. She'd rather keep moving and do something useful while hating herself, thank you very much.

Echo never pushes her to talk. She never asks questions. But when Clarke chooses to talk, Echo listens.

She listens in a calm, steady, utterly attentive sort of way. She's a good, supportive listener, and Clarke wonders whether that's because she's had practice.

"Was it like this in space? With – with _him_? When he thought he'd killed me? Did you do this for him, too?" She asks one morning.

Echo frowns, gives her big question the consideration it needs. "It was similar. I tried to listen to him and be there for him. But it was different because you're different people. He wanted to fight, more than anything. That's how we... became friends at first, I guess. He wanted to train all the damn time."

Clarke nods. That sounds like Bellamy – the Bellamy who followed Pike when he was hurting, or the Bellamy who poured all his frantic energy into hooking up with everyone in sight when they first landed. She recognises the Bellamy of Echo's description, the Bellamy who expresses grief through movement and by acting out.

She recognises him a hell of a lot better than the man she shot.

She always ends up back here. No matter where she tries to take the conversation, no matter where she tries to walk today, she always ends up tugged back to that memory. That shooting. That day.

It's stuck in her head like a song she can't stop singing.

"I'm angry with him." She says it out loud for the first time. They have talked about anger, yes, but never about this specific anger.

"That's how grief works." Echo says simply, shrugging as if it is obvious. "I was so angry with my father when he went and got himself killed in war. I can't imagine how much worse it is when this situation is so messed up."

Clarke nods. That's more understanding than she was expecting. She takes a deep breath, tries daring to confess a little more. "I know I should be more angry with myself. But somehow – I'm still blaming it all on him. I'm angry with him for taking my best friend away from me and turning into someone I wanted dead. I'm angry with him for making me _ruin_ myself like this."

"I get that."

"I'm angry with him for giving up on love. I'm angry with him for giving up on _me_. I loved him while he was gone for _six years_. He was gone three months and he quit love altogether."

Echo doesn't make a fuss about it. She doesn't query the love confession. She doesn't point out everything Clarke already knows is unfair about the comparison – that six relatively comfortable months in Shallow Valley should not be set against three months on the precipice of survival.

She just pulls her in for a hug. It's a good hug, warm and intense and somehow _fierce_. The kind of hug a very good friend would give – a best friend, who cares about you more than they think they probably should.

It gives her a funny feeling – like maybe she's been here before.

…...

She feels less angry, now she's talked about it. That's not saying much – she had so much frustration pent up inside her to begin with that she's still over half way to furious.

But it's better than nothing. It's a start.

It gets easier to get up in the mornings and head out to be useful. And yes, sure, memories of the last moment Bellamy Blake breathed are still stuck flashing before her eyes like the worst kind of catchy tune that could ever ring in her ears.

But she is starting to see past them, little by little. She's starting to see the trees before her, the sky above, the lake that stretches out next to their camp.

Bellamy would like it here, she thinks.

He could have been happy. Just like Madi and Monty and Harper and Jasper and so many thousands of others could have been happy here.

But they're not. It won't happen, now. And she's just going to have to find a way to live with that.

…...

They've been living here a while, when Echo starts to ask Clarke to listen to her in turn. The seasons have changed, the leaves falling from the trees.

Clarke remembers this time from their first year on Earth. She remembers an exasperating guy who shared it with her, too. She's trying to remember him like that, at the moment, because it hurts less than the conflicted feelings she gets when she remembers him in his Disciple robes, or even bearded and standing at Echo's side. It's good to remember the times when things were more straightforward and easy between them, when there was laughter and mutual support more than disappointment or hurt.

She listens to Echo as best she can. She likes helping people. This is different from how she felt, back when she led the human race, when she felt obliged to help people out. She feels more like she's doing this out of choice – supporting her new friend, thanking her for the effort she has put into supporting her in turn.

"I killed my best friend too." Echo shares today.

Clarke is startled. She thought she was unique in her unhappiness, in that regard. Killing a best friend is a _stupid_ thing to do, and she doesn't think of Echo as stupid.

Then again, she used to be proud of her own good sense before it all unravelled.

"You did? That must have hurt." Clarke offers, tone carefully level.

"Yes. It did. I was very young – I think it made it difficult for me to make friendships for a long time. Nia put me in this horrible situation, gave me a choice – me or my best friend."

"I'm sorry, Echo. That's awful."

It's _worse_ , in fact. That's what Clarke thinks. She killed Bellamy to protect Madi – even though things turned out to be a lot more complicated than that, she is at least at peace with the reasons she had at the time. But to kill as a young child, and to kill for one's _own_ survival is tough. It explains why Echo is always so fearful of appearing selfish, she thinks.

It's wretched, of course, that she feels better for knowing that her friend has faced such a horrific decision. It makes her a bad person, probably, to be cheered by Echo's pain.

But she does feel better. She feels less alone. Less like she, of all the human race, is the only truly despicable person – she still remembers that hurting most of all, in the final test. The idea that she was the only human being not worthy to transcend.

Meanwhile, Echo has been gathering her thoughts, it seems. Clarke realises that when she speaks.

"I'm not saying I know everything that's in your head, Clarke. But I guess I'm saying – you're not entirely on your own with this one. I know what it's like to kill your best friend. I know what it's like to feel like you have no choice. To feel backed into a corner."

Clarke nods, grateful.

"I know what it's like to be... not yourself, too. I was a spy for years. I did horrific things, and I told myself it was OK because Echo kom Azgeda was just a part I had to play."

Clarke frowns. She doesn't see how this is anything to do with her situation. She's glad to listen, of course, but she doesn't _understand_.

She could swear she used to understand more, as a general rule, before her life went so terribly wrong.

Echo keeps speaking. "You don't see it? You don't think that's like what you were dealing with – being so anxious that you didn't feel like yourself?"

Clarke gulps. There's some truth in that. She hasn't been able to articulate it herself – the way she's felt, life spiralling away from her, drowning in worry and grief and guilt. She likes to think she's doing a little better, now, making herself useful and talking to Echo. But it's true, she has to admit. She doesn't feel like her _old_ self.

She doesn't bother with words. She's tired of words, in many ways. The words she used to use to reassure a crowd, the words Bellamy used to use to sway the kids at the dropship. They're all tangling together in her head in this mess of white noise, she sometimes thinks. Like she's drowning in an unwanted song.

Maybe she'll get the words under better control again, when she's had more time to heal.

In the meantime, though, she knows what she needs. She keeps silence and reaches out to Echo for another one of her firm hugs.

…...

Clarke isn't surprised when it happens.

She's becoming predictable, perhaps. She's always had a habit of falling for people who used to be the enemy – or who she used to _think_ were the enemy, before she saw the compassion and humanity hiding away inside of them. So it was with Bellamy and Lexa, and so it is with Echo, now.

A best friend who listens, who consoles, who gives good hugs. She's been here before. An echo in every sense of the word.

But of course, that is where the similarities end. Bellamy was soft in his sympathy – squeezing shoulders, telling warm jokes. Echo is different. She's _fierce_. She drags Clarke back towards happiness, leading her out on their expeditions through the forest, insisting that she must make healing a priority.

That must be what she needs right now, because it seems to be working.

She decides she shouldn't act on her newfound feelings. It's not fair on Echo, to shove some silly crush in her face when the woman is only trying to be kind and useful. And anyway, it feels _messy_. There's something grotesque, Clarke thinks, about falling for Echo when the man who first brought them together – in jealousy, as opposed to friendship – is now dead, and she's the one who pulled the trigger.

…...

Murphy is still singing. Clarke supposes that's just who he is – a cockroach who will keep singing to the end of the human race and then a lifetime beyond it. She has learnt, now, that she will never shut him up.

She's not sure she wants to, any more.

The singing doesn't make her want to rip her own ears off, these days. It doesn't make her want to scream or hit or flee.

It simply makes her want to cry, and she thinks that's a much more reasonable reaction.

He's at it again today, splitting logs for the wood pile.

"... it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift..."

Clarke's not sure why she joins in. She doesn't know what sudden impulse makes her do it, after a lifetime of trying to control her sudden impulses. But the next thing she knows she's standing at John Murphy's side and singing _hallelujah_ out over the lake at the top of her voice.

She sounds like a rusty door hinge, she thinks. She can tell she's not been one for words very often, recently.

Murphy's thrilled. He turns to her, grinning, takes in the tears rolling down her cheeks and pulls her in for a hearty hug.

It's not a Bellamy hug. It's not an Echo hug, either. But it's a hug, warm and firm and true, and it shows her something she's only just starting to allow herself to believe.

He wants to be here. He _chose_ to be here, with her. And however many times she screams at him on her worst days, he will not change his mind.

"You see, Clarke? You see? We cockroaches stick together." He tells her, still hugging.

She cries some more, the words of the song giving way to hopeless sobs.

"That's it. Let it all out. And when you're done crying, keep singing. I'm telling you it helps."

She tries it. When she can breath again, she starts off, shaky and tuneless but determined. Murphy helps her out, keeping some kind of rhythm, inviting Miller and Jackson over to back them up.

She still can't sing that bit about the victory march, for what it's worth. It still hurts too much. But she manages a couple of choruses, fragments of verse, and it feels good.

It's like screaming to let it all out, only more _hopeful_ , somehow.

…...

It never occurs to Clarke that Echo is actually interested in her, too. She's so tired and sad, still, despite her halfway house to healing, that such things largely pass her by.

But Echo _is_ interested. Clarke realises that, very abruptly, one crisp winter's morning as they are out in the woods. She's just shot a squirrel, with bow and arrow, right through the eye. Echo is thrilled for her, all hugs and congratulations on the progress she's made.

And then suddenly Echo is leaning in, hot breath fanning against Clarke's lips, eyes fluttering closed.

"I loved him." Clarke gasps, jerking away – not _we can't_ , but _I loved him_ , which she thinks probably means much the same thing in this context.

Echo snorts, a short snatch of genuine humour. "You think I don't know that, Clarke? I've known that a long time. But it's OK. It's fine. We both loved other people first. One of them was the same person. It doesn't make this any less real."

Clarke nods. She takes a deep breath. "I want to. But – I don't know whether it feels right."

Echo nods in turn, hands coming to rest gently on her upper arms. "I get that. I'm not going to rush you or pressure you. It feels right to me. Only you can say whether it feels right to you."

They walk back to camp, quiet but not wordless. Clarke finds that words are coming to her more easily, these days. And when she runs out of conversation, she starts a little bit of a singsong. Not Murphy's favourite bittersweet tune, but something more upbeat and unobjectionable. Something to keep her spirits up, because she has a long hard think ahead of her.

They arrive back at camp. Clarke takes herself straight out on a new walk, out along the shore of the lake. Water is just another one of those things that always reminds her of Bellamy, has her wondering what he was going to say the day he said _if I don't see you again_ amongst other things. It reminds her, too, of that first night on Sanctum, of watching him happy with Echo and talking about forgiveness.

She was so jealous, then. What she wouldn't give, now, to have him alive and in love with Echo rather than dead and lost and gone.

"I'm sorry." She tells the water.

She has to start there, because it's the first time she's ever said it to him. The first time she's ever told him out loud that she regrets it. She's only just coming to a stage of acceptance where she can manage things like that, even after all these months.

She moves to her next point. "I've fallen in love with your ex-girlfriend. Who saw that coming, huh? I bet you're not surprised, actually. You of all people always saw the good in both of us. If – if you're out there, somewhere, I guess you're toasting to us now. No – don't tell me – you and Jasper and Monty had a bet going."

She waits for him to laugh. He'll be laughing, she knows, if he's still capable of laughter.

"So I'm going to kiss her when I get home. It just – it felt right to tell you. It doesn't mean either of us loved you any less." She bites out through her tears.

She pauses a moment, takes shaky breaths. Looks out at the sunlight glinting off the lake and tries not to compare it to Bellamy's much-missed smile.

"And – one other thing. Thanks for keeping me alive. Thanks for keeping _both_ of us alive long enough to get this far. I know we didn't make it easy for you. I will never forgive you for being so damn selfless right to the end." She says, laughing damply.

Because she can see, now, that selflessness is what he was aiming for, when he gave up his life for that sketchbook. At the time she couldn't see past _us and them_ , couldn't understand his dedication to his newfound cause. And she still doesn't understand the cause, if she's being truly honest. She still wishes she had never heard of transcendence. But she has realised that he was still Bellamy to the bitter end in at least that one key regard.

She stands there one moment longer. She takes one more deep breath, fixes the far shore of the lake in her gaze. She waits, just half a heartbeat, to see if he might miraculously walk out of the treeline and wave to her across the water.

He doesn't. Of course he doesn't. He's dead.

She waves all the same. One last fluttering of her fingers before she nods, accepting, and turns for home.

"May we meet again."

Who is she kidding? Of course they'll meet again. She owes him a drink, if they have drinks on the other side.

…...

She kisses Echo when she gets back to camp. She doesn't make a big deal of it. She just approaches her by the fire, curls a hand against her cheek, brings their lips slowly together.

It's a good kiss – soft and _yearning_ , somehow. It fits the bittersweet moment to a tee, fits a relationship built on healing from heartbreak. But it promises more to come, too – passion and pleasure and things that are _good_.

Clarke's looking forward to that. It will be lovely, to be somewhat happy once again.

She's not quite there yet, she decides, as Echo pulls back with a sheepish smile.

"We're good?" She asks.

"We're good." Echo says easily.

That's that. They're good – more or less. Clarke sits by her side and helps prep supper. She's not ready to talk about love, not just yet. It's a word she's still a little scared of in all honesty. But she's ready to show it as best she can in the little everyday gestures, lightening the load of daily chores. That's what love is, in this time and place – rather than urgent decisions made at gunpoint and frantic only choices.

At least, she hopes it is. She _thinks_ it is. She's still working on her definition of love, even after it has ruined her life many times over.

Love is not a victory march. This much she knows for sure. She's not convinced, either, that she'd describe it as any kind of hallelujah – even a cold and broken one.

But she knows this. Love still exists, and the world still goes on turning, even when the war has been won. Even when the victory still feels hollow. She's doing her best, even though sometimes it's not good enough.

And when the day comes for her to cross over to the other side, she will go to her fate with her head held high.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
